Get-Tough Initiatives

History

Get-tough legislation grew out of a confluence of social factors in the 1960s and 1970s. The spiraling crime rate, the controversial decisions of the Warren Court, the perception that nothing worked in rehabilitating offenders, and general social unrest all contributed to the belief that the criminal justice system was failing. Specifically, the Supreme Court had issued a number of controversial decisions in favor of due process (for instance, Miranda v. Arizona and Gideon v. Wainwright), which changed some longstanding criminal justice methods, such as police interrogation practices and a person's constitutional right to an attorney. Many critics felt that the consequence of these decisions was to tie law enforcement's hands in controlling crime. In the years immediately following these landmark decisions, social scientific research evaluated the effectiveness of rehabilitative programming, concluding that rehabilitation was basically unsuccessful in controlling offenders' behavior. These factors led to growing disillusionment with the criminal justice system.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the crime problem came to be increasingly defined by partisan politics in the national arena. Conservative Republicans argued that offenders were undeserving of government programming or treatment and that they should instead take responsibility for their actions through harsh punishment. These conservatives vehemently refuted the democratic ideal that the government had an obligation to ameliorate some of the root causes of crime, such as poverty and substandard education. The national mood shifted concern from social welfare to social control. Moreover, conservatives portrayed anyone in favor of rehabilitative philosophies as ineffective in protecting the public and as contributing to the moral decline of the nation by absolving criminals of their natural responsibility.

Several key incidents solidified the perception that rehabilitative goals were unnecessarily threatening public safety and that tough responses were warranted. Momentum for get-tough policies built during the 1980s, playing a decisive role in the 1988 presidential election in the example of Willie Horton, a convicted felon who committed rape and murder while out on a prison furlough. Horton was touted as the product of “soft on crime” programs in Massachusetts that placed the public at risk. George Bush's decisive victory ensured support for a get-tough approach to crime on a national level.

The second major incident that rallied support for get-tough measures was the abduction and murder of twelve-year-old Polly Klaas in 1993. The man responsible for the crime had been recently paroled after serving only half of his sixteen-year sentence for a prior kidnapping conviction. Such tragic and highly publicized events fueled the perception that the criminal justice system had unrestrained and irresponsibly managed discretion and that changes needed to be made to correct the system.

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